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indistinct_static 's review for:
Absolution
by Jeff VanderMeer
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Annihilation is likely my favorite horror novel. VanderMeer so thoroughly captured the foreboding dread of an unknowable force assimilating reality around you that it warped my own fiction writing aspirations. Since then I've gone down the rabbit hole of similar horror media and feel it's where I feel the most at home. And so it pains me to regard this entry as so middling in comparison to that ecosystem.
Absolution is broken into three stories; the recounting by Old Jim of a team conducting experiments in the location that would become Area X, the tale of Old Jim returning to that area, and finally we get Lowery and the first expedition into Area X proper. The first story is properly weird and established what I liked about the first entry. A clinical analysis of increasingly more bizarre events that whips into an incomprehensible whirlwind. Old Jim's story, while not as enjoyable in my estimation, read like a Delta Green tabletop scenario as central characters felt like people roleplaying a game. All of this was enjoyable. Still worthy of 4 stars, even. Ok, maybe a 3.75, so we're rounding up.
Lowery's story, however, began so expletive laden that it grated in my ears like chewing tinfoil. The character could certainly work with such language if it was toned down, but the constant stream of (spoilers for language)fuckity fuck fuck fuuuuck and the like quickly gave me a headache. Were it not for the peeks at the eldritch dread that surfaced every now and then, the bits that VanderMeer is actually good at, this section could have escaped falling to a 2.
This does not affect my affection for Annihilation, nor my embarrassment for not having read the rest of the series, but it does leave me somewhat crestfallen.
Absolution is broken into three stories; the recounting by Old Jim of a team conducting experiments in the location that would become Area X, the tale of Old Jim returning to that area, and finally we get Lowery and the first expedition into Area X proper. The first story is properly weird and established what I liked about the first entry. A clinical analysis of increasingly more bizarre events that whips into an incomprehensible whirlwind. Old Jim's story, while not as enjoyable in my estimation, read like a Delta Green tabletop scenario as central characters felt like people roleplaying a game. All of this was enjoyable. Still worthy of 4 stars, even. Ok, maybe a 3.75, so we're rounding up.
Lowery's story, however, began so expletive laden that it grated in my ears like chewing tinfoil. The character could certainly work with such language if it was toned down, but the constant stream of (spoilers for language)
This does not affect my affection for Annihilation, nor my embarrassment for not having read the rest of the series, but it does leave me somewhat crestfallen.